Onstar to let you make money renting your car

Erica, 17th July 2012

If you have Onstar equipped in your car, you'll soon be able to make some cash on the side.
That is, if you feel comfortable letting strangers take your whip for a ride around town. GM, which owns Onstar, is set to launch an Onstar-powered nationwide car rental platform.

The company is planning to partner with startup firm RelayRides, which is trying to make it big in the social car-sharing space but has found that it's difficult to get owners to entrust their car to a complete stranger.

But because Onstar tracks your car, can report if it gets into an accident, is able to remotely deactivate a vehicle if it needs to, etc, it makes the entire experience as safe as possible for the car owner.

Oh, and speaking of accidents, of course this all comes with a guaranteed insurance policy. Onstar owners who rent out their car will be backed by a $1 million policy should anything happen to their vehicle.

Moreover, the renter also gets $300,000 of coverage so this is truly a win-win situation.

Here's how it works - if you own an Onstar vehicle, you can list it as available to rent. If you end up loaning out your car, you get to set the hourly price, and are entitled to keep 60% of the total fee. The average cost should be around $10 per hour, making it very affordable for renters.

The rest goes to RelayRides, which is no doubt going to grow rapidly because of this partnership. "Having access to millions and millions of cars should accelerate our growth," said RelayRides founder Shelby Clark.